Tuesday, April 26, 2011

If you want to see Illinois become a shall-issue, right-to-carry state this year, it's time to call your Representative in the Illinois House. If you're not sure who that is, you can type your address in here and find out who's your Representative and what his/her phone numbers are. Might as well call the Springfield offices; they should be back in town.

Done with that? Good. Now I'm going to ask you to do something that might seem odd: Call Mike Madigan and tell him you expect a fair vote on HB148 and you hope he'll vote for it. Now, you might be scratching your head right now at the idea that Mike Madigan, Speaker of the House since 1983, leader of Illinois Democrats, father of Lisa Madigan, halfway-adopted-brother of Dick Daley, should be urged to vote for a right-to-carry bill. But please do it anyway. Remember that we don't actually need Madigan to vote for the bill (though that would help, Mike, if you're reading this) but we do need to show him that there's a true grassroots movement after this bill that will remember if he at least makes sure we get a fair floor vote, up or down.If you aren't done with that because you're not sure of Mike Madigan's phone number, check the title again.

Got that done, too? Congratulations, you are now a hardcore grassroots activist willing to do more than 90% of gun owners can be bothered to do. Wanna buck for the top percentile? Call Glenn Poshard at Southern Illinois University and tell him to quit trying to kill right-to-carry in Illinois over his turf battle. Poshard is currently leading a group of college administrators lobbying to have the entire bill scuttled unless it makes it a felony to possess a firearm anywhere on campus; if you've ever taken a drive through Carbondale or Champaign, you know we're not just talking about the quad here. I know you'll all be polite and cheerful, but firm. Some of you may decide to mention that if Mr. Poshard doesn't call off the dogs, then even when we win right-to-carry, the fight won't be over for him, because I for one would become a near-full-time "Campus Carry" advocate in that event.

When you're trying to kill the carry bill that Chicago police unions want to see passed, you're so far out of touch that you might be out of sight.